This game feels incredibly frustrating to me but not for the reasons I expected. It would be one thing if I just outright disliked the game and wrote it off as a bit of a failed experiment in a lot of regards, but that's not really accurate in the grand scheme of things, neither to what the game is, nor my own personal thoughts towards it. It's pretty interesting the way that after the first Sonic game, the two following ones seemed to wholly embody one of the core pillars that the games in the series would embrace past that point, with Sonic 2 being all about tight, linear platforming heavily centred around momentum, while Sonic CD was all about the exploration and secrets. This was conveyed pretty effectively through the very unconventional level design approach, often being huge and sprawling with a seemingly endless amount of diverging paths at any given point, playing into a sense of verticality in an incredibly prominent way especially.
The issue with this is the fact that while it's true that the levels are as dense as they are to allow for this sense of exploration, it all feels very haphazard, often almost feeling as if the worst elements of the previous games were taken and then amplified tenfold. There are constant obstacles set in your path seemingly at random that you can't really intuitively predict being far more common, especially problematic when the obstacle happens to be an enemy. On its own this is bad enough, but the way that the stages themselves feel like formless masses of thrown around obstacles makes it that much harder to actually properly get your bearings and survive more easily for your next run unless you painstakingly attempt to memorise everything you just went through and rigidly follow that same path, which ultimately defeats the purpose of the levels being structured the way they are.
The time travel mechanic makes a lot of this worse as well with the way the level design often feels directly at odds with the more reckless nature you're expected to play around with in order to actually travel to the past or future. Maintaining huge bouts of speed in this game is often a nightmare outside of a few sections specifically designed to keep you moving at a constant pace without much disruption, but these are few and far between, often making the mere concept of interacting with this system something frustrating. Locking the true ending behind a set of requirements related to this is all the more frustrating as it's almost as if the game wants you to either memorise it fully or to just play directly counter to the more satisfying experience of taking a bit more time so you're not just being thrown headfirst into a wall or enemy every few seconds. Really it's just fortunate that despite all of this, the game is pretty easy for the most part and it's more a case of being really tedious or annoying than something you'll be banging your head against for hours. It's still not ideal by any means and the approach to level design ultimately makes even the most interesting ideas feel entirely hollow, but I'd much rather take a somewhat more ambient experience that you can really fall into here compared to something that just likes to see you dead.
Funnily enough though, despite the fact that the levels are genuinely awful to me for the most part, often feeling even less engaging than the lowest points of Sonic 1, I love every other element of this game to the point that I can't even say that I dislike the game. I really love the more atmospheric approach that this game takes in basically every regard, most notably with the music. The soundtrack is very rarely outright "fun" in the way it usually is, instead consistently aiming for something that feels more jagged, moody and dark, with special mention towards the boss theme being so bizarrely sinister, especially with the laugh in the background. This is also where the time travel mechanic shows its worth with the way it's able to further reinforce the threat of Eggman on the world, both by showing you the future in ruins, and by showing you how much prettier these zones were before he started his conquest. It ultimately elevates him beyond simply feeling like just some guy you need to defeat into a truly powerful, dangerous force that you must defeat at all cost if you don't want to fail the people of the future. The soundtrack changing depending on the time period you travel to is also awesome with how it further plays into this, with the dreary, hopeless atmosphere of the bad future tracks being especially striking.
Despite not really enjoying the levels, the bosses are a different story, as while they're definitely very, very easy, they take the whole idea of them being more akin to little quirky mechanical explorations even further than normal. Every fight has its own unique flavour to it that really push the mechanics to their logical endpoints without really being difficult in the process, more just wildly creative. My favourite is the one in Quartz Quadrant that involves you running across a conveyor belt to sand down the platform Eggman is standing on, being a bit of an inversion on the typical trend of the boss fight using the environment against you while also being a really clever way of incorporating the conveyors into the battle without it merely being a platform to hinder your own precise movements. They're not all perfect for sure, special mention to the janky, frustrating mess that was the pinball machine, but even these still have so many cool elements to them that I still can't really dislike them either, and they once again add to my beliefs that the bosses in this series as a whole deserve way more praise than they usually get even though most of them are so easy.
On the whole this is a weird game for me that might honestly grow on repeat playthroughs, but as it stands, I can't really outright hate this when it gets so much right and feels like such a unique and bold take on Sonic in so many ways. It's really just a shame that the place that it falls flat for me is something so integral to the overall experience that I also can't bring myself to love it either. So many contradictory decisions on top of so many moments that are just downright annoying ultimately make for a game that I really admire while also not especially actually playing a lot of it, it's weird, but my feelings for now are very slightly leaning positive and I'll take it for the time being and get back to this again later to hopefully find more to appreciate.
The issue with this is the fact that while it's true that the levels are as dense as they are to allow for this sense of exploration, it all feels very haphazard, often almost feeling as if the worst elements of the previous games were taken and then amplified tenfold. There are constant obstacles set in your path seemingly at random that you can't really intuitively predict being far more common, especially problematic when the obstacle happens to be an enemy. On its own this is bad enough, but the way that the stages themselves feel like formless masses of thrown around obstacles makes it that much harder to actually properly get your bearings and survive more easily for your next run unless you painstakingly attempt to memorise everything you just went through and rigidly follow that same path, which ultimately defeats the purpose of the levels being structured the way they are.
The time travel mechanic makes a lot of this worse as well with the way the level design often feels directly at odds with the more reckless nature you're expected to play around with in order to actually travel to the past or future. Maintaining huge bouts of speed in this game is often a nightmare outside of a few sections specifically designed to keep you moving at a constant pace without much disruption, but these are few and far between, often making the mere concept of interacting with this system something frustrating. Locking the true ending behind a set of requirements related to this is all the more frustrating as it's almost as if the game wants you to either memorise it fully or to just play directly counter to the more satisfying experience of taking a bit more time so you're not just being thrown headfirst into a wall or enemy every few seconds. Really it's just fortunate that despite all of this, the game is pretty easy for the most part and it's more a case of being really tedious or annoying than something you'll be banging your head against for hours. It's still not ideal by any means and the approach to level design ultimately makes even the most interesting ideas feel entirely hollow, but I'd much rather take a somewhat more ambient experience that you can really fall into here compared to something that just likes to see you dead.
Funnily enough though, despite the fact that the levels are genuinely awful to me for the most part, often feeling even less engaging than the lowest points of Sonic 1, I love every other element of this game to the point that I can't even say that I dislike the game. I really love the more atmospheric approach that this game takes in basically every regard, most notably with the music. The soundtrack is very rarely outright "fun" in the way it usually is, instead consistently aiming for something that feels more jagged, moody and dark, with special mention towards the boss theme being so bizarrely sinister, especially with the laugh in the background. This is also where the time travel mechanic shows its worth with the way it's able to further reinforce the threat of Eggman on the world, both by showing you the future in ruins, and by showing you how much prettier these zones were before he started his conquest. It ultimately elevates him beyond simply feeling like just some guy you need to defeat into a truly powerful, dangerous force that you must defeat at all cost if you don't want to fail the people of the future. The soundtrack changing depending on the time period you travel to is also awesome with how it further plays into this, with the dreary, hopeless atmosphere of the bad future tracks being especially striking.
Despite not really enjoying the levels, the bosses are a different story, as while they're definitely very, very easy, they take the whole idea of them being more akin to little quirky mechanical explorations even further than normal. Every fight has its own unique flavour to it that really push the mechanics to their logical endpoints without really being difficult in the process, more just wildly creative. My favourite is the one in Quartz Quadrant that involves you running across a conveyor belt to sand down the platform Eggman is standing on, being a bit of an inversion on the typical trend of the boss fight using the environment against you while also being a really clever way of incorporating the conveyors into the battle without it merely being a platform to hinder your own precise movements. They're not all perfect for sure, special mention to the janky, frustrating mess that was the pinball machine, but even these still have so many cool elements to them that I still can't really dislike them either, and they once again add to my beliefs that the bosses in this series as a whole deserve way more praise than they usually get even though most of them are so easy.
On the whole this is a weird game for me that might honestly grow on repeat playthroughs, but as it stands, I can't really outright hate this when it gets so much right and feels like such a unique and bold take on Sonic in so many ways. It's really just a shame that the place that it falls flat for me is something so integral to the overall experience that I also can't bring myself to love it either. So many contradictory decisions on top of so many moments that are just downright annoying ultimately make for a game that I really admire while also not especially actually playing a lot of it, it's weird, but my feelings for now are very slightly leaning positive and I'll take it for the time being and get back to this again later to hopefully find more to appreciate.